Tatyana Borissovna smiled slyly.

'I agon-ise, I agon-ise!' yelled her nephew in the next room.

'Be quiet, Andryusha!'

'My soul's consumed apart from thee!' the indefatigable singer
continued.

Tatyana Borissovna shook her head.

'Ah, these artists! these artists!'....

A year has gone by since then. Byelovzorov is still living at his
aunt's, and still talking of going back to Petersburg. He has grown as
broad as he is long in the country. His aunt--who could have imagined
such a thing?--idolises him, and the young girls of the neighbourhood
are falling in love with him....

Many of her old friends have given up going to Tatyana Borissovna's.




XVI

DEATH

I have a neighbour, a young landowner and a young sportsman. One fine
July morning I rode over to him with a proposition that we should go out